Please refer to FIG. 1A, which is a diagram of a peristaltic micro-pump in the prior art. The peristaltic micro-pump, in the prior art, employs at least two pieces of flat membrane to generate discrete peristaltic motion and thus to pump a flow.
The advantages of using pneumatic pressure as the driving force are: the device is easily manufactured, low in power consumption, and the driving gas is easily obtained. The discrete pneumatic peristaltic micro-pump needs at least two membranes, while each membrane needs an electro-magnetic valve as the pneumatic pressure switch. The membranes will move up and down according to the supply and release of the pneumatic pressure, which makes it act like a pump. Due to the fact that the membrane is flat, when it moves up the working fluid will be compressed. The compressed working fluid is forced into two equal portions, in which one portion flows to one direction, while the other one flows to the opposite direction. In other words, only half of the working fluid will flow in the desired direction.
Therefore, the prior art has the problem of low fluid pumping efficiency.